Public bathing

Public baths originated from a communal need for cleanliness. The term public is not completely accurate, as some types of public baths are restricted depending on membership, gender, religious affiliation, or other reasons. As societies have changed, public baths have been replaced as private bathing facilities became more commonly available. Public baths have also become incorporated into the social system as meeting places. As the title suggests public bathing does not refer only to bathing. In ancient times public bathing included saunas, massages and relaxation therapies. Members of the society considered it as a place to meet and socialize. Public bathing could be compared to the spa of modern times.

In The Book of the Bath, Françoise de Bonneville wrote, "The history of public baths begins in Greece in the sixth century B.C.," where men and women washed in basins near places of exercise, physical and intellectual. Later gymnasia had indoor basins set overhead, the open maws of marble lions offering showers, and circular pools with tiers of steps for lounging.

Bathing was ritualized, becoming an art – of cleansing sands, hot water, hot air in dark vaulted "vapor baths," a cooling plunge, a rubdown with aromatic oils. Cities all over Ancient Greece honored sites where "young ephebes stood and splashed water over their bodies."

The first public thermae of 19 BC had a rotunda 25 metres across, circled by small rooms, set in a park with artificial river and pool. By AD 300 the Baths of Diocletian would cover 140,000 square metres (1,500,000 sq ft), its soaring granite and porphyry sheltering 3,000 bathers a day. Roman baths became "something like a cross between an aquacentre and a theme park," with pools, game rooms, gardens, even libraries and theatres. One of the most famous public bath sites is Aquae Sulis in Bath, England.

Dr.Garrett G Fagan, Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and History at The Pennsylvania State University, has named public bathing as a "social event" for the Romans in his book "Bathing in Public in the Roman World". He also states that "In Western Europe only the Finns still practice a truly public bathing habit." Dr. Fagan has done extensive research on public bathing.[2][3]

During the Ottoman Empire public baths were widely used. The baths had both a religious and popular origin deriving from the Qur'an (ablution ritual) and the use of steamrooms by the Turks. The Turkish baths also known as the Hammam, was considered a place for social gathering in Turkish Culture, states the official website Turkish baths. The process of Hammam is very similar to that of the Roman bathing.[4]

The origin of Japanese bathing is Misogi, ritual purification with water.[5] After Japan imported Buddhist culture, many temples had saunas, which were available for anyone to use for free.

In the Heian period, houses of prominent families, such as the families of court nobles or samurai, had baths. The bath had lost its religious significance and instead became leisure. Misogi became Gyōzui, to bathe in a shallow wooden tub.[6]

In the 17th century, the first European visitors to Japan recorded the habit of daily baths in sexually mixed groups.[5] Before the mid-19th century, when Western influence increased, nude communal bathing for men, women, and children at the local unisex public bath, or sentō, was a daily fact of life.

In contemporary times, many, but not all administrative regions forbid nude mixed gender public baths. Public baths using water from onsen (hot springs) are particularly popular. Towns with hot springs are destination resorts, which are visited daily by the locals and people from other, neighboring towns.

In Europe, during the Middle Ages, the public bathing culture of antiquity fell into disuse and bathing was even discouraged by the Catholic church. Roman style public baths were reintroduced on a limited scale by returning crusaders in the 11th and 12th centuries, who had enjoyed warm baths in the Middle east. These, however, rapidly degenerated into brothels or at least the reputation as such and were closed down at various times. For instance, in England during the reign of Henry II, bath houses, called 'bagnios' from the Italian word for bath, were set up in Southwark on the river Thames. They were all officially closed down by Henry VIII in 1546 due to their negative reputation.

A notable exception to this trend was in Finland and Scandinavia, where the sauna remained a popular phenomenon, even expanding during the Reformation period, when European bath houses were being destroyed. Finnish saunas remain an integral and ancient part of the way of life in Finland. They are found on the shores of Finland's numerous lakes, in private apartments, corporate headquarters, at the Parliament House and even at the depth of 1,400 metres (4,600 ft) in Pyhäsalmi Mine. The sauna is an important part of the national identity[7] and those who have the opportunity usually take a sauna at least once a week.[8]

Interior of Liverpool wash house, the first public wash house in England.

Large public baths such as those found in the ancient world and the Ottoman Empire were revived during the 19th century. The first modern public baths were opened in Liverpool in 1829. The first known warm fresh-water public wash house was opened in May 1842.[9][10]

The popularity of wash-houses was spurred by the newspaper interest in Kitty Wilkinson, an Irish immigrant "wife of a labourer" who became known as the Saint of the Slums.[11] In 1832, during a cholera epidemic, Wilkinson took the initiative to offer the use of her house and yard to neighbours to wash their clothes, at a charge of a penny per week,[9] and showed them how to use a chloride of lime (bleach) to get them clean. She was supported by the District Provident Society and William Rathbone. In 1842 Wilkinson was appointed baths superintendent.[12][13]

In Birmingham, around ten private baths were available in the 1830s. Whilst the dimensions of the baths were small, they provided a range of services.[14] A major proprietor of bath houses in Birmingham was a Mr. Monro who had had premises in Lady Well and Snow Hill.[15] Private baths were advertised as having healing qualities and being able to cure people of diabetes, gout and all skin diseases, amongst others.[15] On 19 November 1844, it was decided that the working class members of society should have the opportunity to access baths, in an attempt to address the health problems of the public. On 22 April and 23 April 1845, two lectures were delivered in the town hall urging the provision of public baths in Birmingham and other towns and cities.

The following year, the first public bath of its type to be built in mainland Britain since Roman times was opened in Manchester, and the idea spread rapidly. It reached London in July 1860, when Roger Evans, a member of one of Urquhart's Foreign Affairs Committees, opened a Turkish bath at 5 Bell Street, near Marble Arch. During the following 150 years, over 600 Turkish baths opened in Britain, including those built by municipal authorities as part of swimming pool complexes, taking advantage of the fact that water-heating boilers were already on site.

Similar baths opened in other parts of the British Empire. Dr. John Le Gay Brereton opened a Turkish bath in Sydney, Australia in 1859, Canada had one by 1869, and the first in New Zealand was opened in 1874. Urquhart's influence was also felt outside the Empire when in 1861, Dr Charles H Shepard opened the first Turkish baths in the United States at 63 Columbia Street, Brooklyn Heights, New York, most probably on 3 October 1863.[21][22]

The introduction of bath houses into British culture was a response to the public's desire for increased sanitary conditions, and by 1915 most towns in Britain had at least one.[23]

The building of public baths in the United States began in the 1890s. Notable constructions of the period include Bathhouse Row[24] in Arkansas, and Asser Levy Public Baths in New York City. Public baths were created to improve health and sanitary condition of the public before personal baths became commonplace.

Washing and thermal body treatments with steam and accessories such as a bunch of birch branches has been traditionally carried out in banyas. This traditions were born in rural areas, Russia being a spacious country with farming population dominating until World War II. Farmers did not have inside their log cabins running water supply and hot bathtubs for washing their bodies, so they either used for their washing heat and space inside their Russian ovens or built from logs, like the cottage itself, a one-family banya bath outhouse behind their dwelling on the family's land plot. It was typically a smallish wooden cabin with a low entrance and no more than one small window to keep heat inside. Traditionally, the family washed their bodies completely once a week before the day of the Bible-prescribed rest (Sunday) as having a (steam) bath meant having to get and bring in a considerable amount of firewood and water and spending time off other farmwork heating the bathhouse.

With the growth of Russian big cities since 18th century, public baths were opened in them and then back in villages. While the richer urban circles could afford having an individual bathroom with a bathtub in their apartments (since late 19th century with running water), the lower classes necessarily used public steambaths - special big buildings which were equipped with developed side catering services enjoyed by the merchants with farming background.

Since the first half of the 20th century running unheated drinking water supply has been made available virtually to all inhabitants of multy-storey apartment buildings in cities, but if such dwellings were built in 1930s and not upgraded later, they have no hot running water (except for central heating) and no room for a bathtub, plumbing facilities being limited in them to a kitchen sink and a small toilet room with a toilet seat. Thus the dwellers of such apartments, on a par with those living in the part of pre-1917-built blocks of flats which had not undergone cardinal renovation, have no choice but to use public bathhouses.

Since 1950s in cities, towns and many rural areas more comfortable dwelling became a nationally required standard, and almost all apartments are designed with both cold and hot water supply, and a bathroom with a bathtub, but a percantage of people living in them still go to public steam baths for health treatments with steam, tree branches, aromatic oils and for social activities such as meeting friends and having a chat, a drink (typically, beer) and/or a snack in the dressing/cooling room, as was archetypally shown in a 1970s New Year evergreen comedy film The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!.

^"Baths and Wash-Houses". The Times. 22 July 1846. p. 6. Yesterday the bill, as amended by the committee, for promoting the voluntary establishment in boroughs and parishes in England and Wales of public baths and wash-houses was printed.

^"Classified Advertising". The Times. 26 July 1847. p. 1. Model Public Baths, Goulston-square, Whitechapel. The BATHS for men and boys are now OPEN from 5 in the morning till 10 at night. Charges - first-class (two towels), cold bath 5d., warm bath 6d.; second-class (one towel), cold bath 1d, warm bath 2d. Every bath is in a private room.